thirty years
by Jean Kirschstein
Summary: Nonna kills Loghain. Alistair abdicates his claim to the throne. The Archdemon is killed. You know, just little, everyday things.


**I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THE WRONG DRAFT IM SORRY okay go ahead and read**

**i don't know where i'm going with this**

**i just really like the scene where you get a rose from alistair so that's part's pretty game!dialogue heavy**

**ps. i love wynne, i really do. i wasn't trying to make her out to be the villain or anything**

* * *

"Call me Nonna," she says suddenly one night as the sit side by side. She has one of her blades braced across her thigh with a whetstone to the edge, an enormously troubled look on her face.

"Uhm, excuse me?" he replies with knee-jerk reflexes, caught off guard. There was no precedent for her request, no prior discussion or demand. Alistair had just always called her 'Cousland' or 'Lady Cousland' because that is what he had always known her as, even when he was a little boy under the Arl's tutelage.

And suddenly she just looks uncomfortable, one hand clenched around the whetstone while the other brushes a stray lock of copper hair behind her ear. "My name's Rhiannon," she said uneasily, peering into the fire, "but my family always called me Nonna. And we're friends, right? So you can call me that, too."

Alistair just sort of nods, thrown by her sudden insecurity, though she seems cheered by his (non)answer and effectively ends the conversation. When he looks up, Leliana is grinning at him from across the firepit and Zevran's eyes glint suspiciously.

* * *

Freckles have cropped up across her cheeks, like stars smattering across the sky.

(Except, you know, inverted.)

Alistair's not quite sure why he notices this, just that he does. Just like how he can never quiet decide if her eyes are green or blue, or how to precisely categorize all of her different smiles (of which there are many, some more rare than others). Just like how he prefers her hair when it's down, fiery curls tumbling over her shoulders, and- this is _very_ dangerous territory.

But he can't help the warm, fuzzy feeling that wells up when she laughs at his jokes and not at _him_, or the fierce jealousy that washes through him when Zevran sidles up to her side an murmurs something in her ear. (And then proceeds to flash Alistair a coy look over his shoulder, but that's neither here nor there.)

When she smiles, the world seems- not brighter, but not as dark, and he's just sure if that comforts or scares him.

* * *

Roses are a corny sentiment, but he couldn't help himself. And then...

"Feeling a bit thorny, are we?" Nonna asks coyly, twirling the blossom between her fingers, and Alistair feels the heat creeping up over his ears.

He laughed nervously, threading his fingers together and squinting at a point somehwere over her shoulder. "Wow," he managed, voice cracking. "'She'll never see through that,' I told myself. Boy was I wrong."

Nonna huffed out a soft laugh, running her fingers lightly over the pale pink petals. "It's a lovely sentiment, Alistair," she said quietly, something in her tone yielding. His eyes flicked back and her expression had softened, a tiny smile fluttering about the corners of her lips. The knot in his stomach loosened a bit.

"I thought the same about you, you know," she continues, and then pauses. "Sans the beautiful part. Handsome. Unless you're into that kind of thing?" Her smile is more devious, now.

Real laughter bubbles up, now, up his throat and out of his mouth, and it feels... nice. A pleasant change to the gut-wrenching anxiety that had plagued him earlier. "Wouldn't you like to know," he tells her teasingly, and her snort is worth it.

* * *

He knows all is lost when he looks over at her and thinks how nicely the dark red of darkspawn blood compliments her hair. Even without touching on how macabre the thought is, he's near scared out of his pants.

Being a Warden is bad for your health even when there's not a Blight, what with running errands into the Deep Roads and such, and the taint-sludge in your blood. But now- one or both of them will have to face down the Archdemon. He doesn't want to lose her, couldn't bear making the pain just that much sweeter.

It's all a bit silly when he takes a step back, looks at it as if this is all happening to someone else. A bit cliche, too.

He reaches out and wipes away a bit of blood from her cheek, returning her brilliant smile.

* * *

Wynne's got him figured out.

"Alistair, dear," the elderly mage says sweetly one night, in the tone of voice that makes him instantly suspicious. She's tugging him back towards her corner of the camp and he heaves a dramatic sigh but complies. "I'd like to talk to you for a moment."

"Is this another attempt to work your womanly wiles on me?" he teases, but his mind's going a hundred miles per minute, gears churning, tying to figure out what she wants now.

Wynne turns to look at him, all traces of levity in her aged features replaced by a sweet, motherly concern that immediately shuts him up. His first thought: _Is someone dying?_

"I'm worried about you," is what she says instead.

"What? Why?" A pause. "Aside from darkspawn and my possible impending doom, I suppose."

She levels him with a stern look and he snaps his mouth shut, reminded of the holy mother in Denerim's chantry. "No," she says slowly, considering her words.

He waits but she doesn't continue, obviously pained by what she wishes to say. "Well?" he prods, almost, _almost _worried. "Out with it!"

"I have nothing but the utmost respect for Rhiannon," she says finally, looking up at him with furrowed brows, "but she isn't good for you."

"Um. What?"

Wynne clicks her tongue and smooths his hair away from his forehead and Alistair lets her because it's _nice. _He's never had a mother and he figures that Wynne's as close as he'll ever get. "I've seen the way you look at her," she tells him softly, sadness lacing her tone. "She isn't good for you."

Alistiar blinks, once, twice, then steels his expression and pulls away from her gentle hands. "I think that's my decision to make, thank you."

"Oh, dear," the mage says, and it sounds almost pitying. "Rhiannon is proud and passionate, all fire and heat, but she won't do you any good except break your heart. You'll get burned."

Again, "That's my decision to make."

"I know how it feels to be in love," she continues, as if he hasn't spoken.

"Excuse y-"

"-and nothing good ever c-"

"-what?"

"-you will thank me later, of co-

"You're a Cirlce mage!" he finally cuts in, exasperated and more than a little angry. "What do you know of love?"

Wynne quiets immediately and her expression pinches into some indescribable, but it makes Alistair want to take back his words immediately. _Foot, meet mouth. I'm sure you'll be good friends._

"I suppose you're right," she says, voice tight. "Now, it's late, and I think it's time these old bones got some rest."

A clear dismissal. "Wynne-"

"Good_night_, Alistair."

* * *

"Will you miss it, once it's over?"

Nonna peers down at him from the branch that she's perched on, a queer look on her face. She had been trying to catch a glimpse of Denerim, or at least the gates, where they were to rendezvous with Arl Eamon at his city estate. "Tearing up right now, just thinking about it," she replies breezily, stretching to try and grab hold of another branch.

Alistair laughs a little, at that, but then quiets. He can hear he scuttling among the leaves above him, and he glances up at the sky through the trees. The stars are bright against the dark sky, stark in contrast, and he's suddenly reminded of her freckles. "Really, though," he tries again. "Darkspawn, fighting, near-death experiences. Will you miss it?"

"Miss it?" she asks, and she's right above him, hanging upside-down to look him in the eye. Her voice is soft, serious. "Or miss you?"

He stares at her with wide eyes for maybe a second or two, and once he gets his heartbeat back under control (he did _not _shriek like frightened little girl, thank you) he shrugs a little. "Both, maybe," he says slowly. "Sometimes I think I'm fooling myself. I mean- I was raised in the _chantry_; that should explain itself. And besides, there are so many better men out there, smarter, funnier, but not better looking. I at least know I've got the monopoly on that."

Oh, Maker, he's making a complete _fool _of himself.

But Nonna smiles at him, warm and soft: his favorite kind of smile, and the kind that she saves just for him. "No," she says. "You're not fooling yourself."

And then she disappears back up into the branches, leaving him completely flustered.

* * *

Nonna kills Loghain. Alistair abdicates his claim to the throne. The Archdemon is killed. You know, just little, everyday things.

The last one is probably the most significant, which of course that means that it's the one Alistair remembers the least of. He's still reeling a bit from _sex _with _Morrigan_, which isn't a little, everyday thing. He does, however, remember the bright light and the staggering sense of relief when he sees Nonna struggle to her feet.

"Rhiannon!" he calls out, and it feels both foreign and familiar on his tongue, but she's turning around, expression jubilant beneath the dirt and blood and sweat.

He can't help it; he pulls her against him and lifts her up, spins them both around, a near-hysterical laugh breaking free from where it had been caged in his chest. It doesn't matter, though. She's laughing too.

She puts her palm against his neck and the leather is warm, almost as warm as skin, and she looks down at him, smile still on her face and the laughter lingering in her eyes. _She's really quite beautiful,_ he thinks and she's leaning closer and- oh.

Nonna's lips taste salty, like sweat, but her lets her slip to the ground and leans into her anyway, and she kisses him, _hard, _demanding. He's a bit surprised- forceful is not something he'd pegged her as- but he lets her guide him and when he pulls away she tries to chase him down.

Someone whistles. Loudly.

They both whip around to find Zevran raising his eyebrows at them.

* * *

They go to Amaranthine together and Nonna becomes the Warden-Commander of Fereldan.

There's some confusion over that, as Alistair is, in fact, the senior Warden, but he doesn't mind. Nonna has always led and he has always followed, and that's the way that he's content to keep it. She's sexy when she takes charge, anyway, and he loves how she goes red when he tells her such.

Oghren belches and tells them to get a room (which they do).

They're married three years after that, and though Alistair knows that children are a thing that Nonna has desperately wanted, she's happy enough enough to fill the keep with friends and family and orphans and the occasional mabari or two. His Grace sets a good example, he's sure.

It's a good life, he thinks. There's just enough errands into the Deep Roads to keep them on their toes, and there hasn't been a serious injury in months. It's nice, peaceful, and more than Alistair had ever thought to hope for.

* * *

When he closes his eyes, he thinks of her.

Twenty-nine and a half years of his life had been spent at her side, and they were some of the best years of his life. He is not afraid to die, not afraid to shed that life. He had lived in the security of knowing when death would come for him- both of them had. And so he would die alone, but not afraid.

Nonna had not cried when he left. She watched him go with dry cheeks, but there was something in her eyes, something so sad and battered and broken, that it made _him _want to cry. She stool tall, chin high and shoulders back, looking more regal in trousers and an old linen shirt than she ever had in a dress.

And she kissed him sweetly, soft and chaste. There was no bitterness in her kiss, no desperation or pleading, just a deep sense of love and resignation. "May we meet again, in another life," she all but breathed against his mouth, words carrying the cadence of a poem.

"I love you," he told her, voice choked. Suddenly he was twenty-two again, bumbling and clumsy, and he felt like a fool. "I love you so, so much. Never forget that."

She didn't say anything, just gave him one last, lingering kiss, and sent him off.

Alistair closes his eyes, now, breathes in the stale, foul air of the Deep Roads, and thinks of home.


End file.
